Product Description

Are you in the Meantime?

Are you confused, angry, disappointed, frustrated, anxious, apprehensive, sorry for yourself, or generally wiped out? If so, my friend, you are in the meantime.

Are you ready to put the pieces of your life together? Are you ready to begin the process of healing? Are you ready to give and receive love in all of your experiences?

In Living Through the Meantime, bestselling author Iyanla Vanzant will lead you, step-by-step, to a greater understanding of your own past, your motivations, and your desires. Once you have completed this program of meditation, self-care, and self-examination, you will be able to move beyond your meantime experience and into the love that is your true essence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65494 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-14
• Released on: 2001-08-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743227100
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
The "meantime," according to best-selling author and inspirational speaker Iyanla Vanzant, is that in-between stage of life when you're gathering up strength, evaluating past mishaps, and preparing for the next chapter. Using the metaphor of psyche as house, Vanzant believes that the meantime offers a perfect opportunity for tackling a rigorous cleaning. "We are going to go through every inch of your emotional and spiritual house and clean up the mess, clear out the debris, fix the leaks, stop the squeaks, and reveal and repair any damage we can find," she promises in this workbook. Readers who felt soothed and inspired by Vanzant's In the Meantime will probably appreciate this floor-by-floor companion workbook. Every chapter of Living Through the Meantime contains an assortment of "Caring Exercises," ranging from affirmations, such as "I now place my faith in the power and presence of God's love" to quasi-therapeutic fill-in-the-blanks statements. (For example, "My earliest experience of feeling betrayed was ___.") Vanzant is not the most eloquent or sophisticated of writers, but she does seem to touch people's hearts and crack them open. Her main agendas are self-reflection and trust in God. Fans who are ready to tackle a hefty self-improvement project will not be disappointed with this workbook. Newcomers should check out her earlier book before committing to this one. -- Gail Hudson

About the Author
Iyanla Vanzant is the host of the daytime talk show, Iyanla! which airs weekdays across the country. She is the award-winning and bestselling author of Until Today!; Yesterday, I Cried; One Day My Soul Just Opened Up; In the Meantime; and many others. Ebony has named her one of its "55 Most Intriguing People," Vibe magazine tabbed her as one of the "100 Leaders of the New Millennium," and Newsweek recently included her as one of the "Women of the New Century." She lectures and facilitates workshops nationally, assisting in the empowerment of women and men everywhere.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Entering The Meantime

welcome! Chances are, if you have put forth the effort and energy to find this book, you are in the "meantime." I welcome you because I know something wonderful is about to happen -- in your life and for you.

You probably think your life or some part of it is falling apart. The truth of the matter is everything is about to come together just the way you have always wanted it to!

The objective of this meantime workbook is to help you put the pieces of your life together -- the missing pieces, the broken pieces, the confusing pieces, and the lost pieces. We are going to go through every inch of your emotional and spiritual house

and clean up the mess, clear out the debris, fix the leaks, stop the

squeaks, and reveal and repair any damage we can find. This workbook is designed to support you while you do the work required to build a solid structure that is grounded in love. Let me warn you right now, it may not be easy! But then, you knew that, didn't you?

The meantime is a working time. It is the 9-5 of your life to which you bring all that you have studied, learned, been told, understand, and recognize about yourself and life. The meantime is a time of strengthening that knowledge so that it can work through you and for you. The meantime is where you land when you saw it coming, did not know what to do about it, ran around frantically for a while, and finally said, "Okay! Okay! I don't like it, but I am willing to deal with it!" Willingness is the key that transforms a character-developing experience into a soul-enhancing one. At the core of your soul is the essence of love.

In the meantime, you get to deal with all the pieces of your experience that you do not like, but are at least willing to understand. Understanding is the ticket through the meantime. Every step or misstep you have ever taken has led to this moment. You are exactly where you need to be, doing exactly what you need to be doing in order to move into a higher consciousness. This is the place you had to come to in order to "bump" your life up to the next level. The meantime is about pumping up the volume -- the volume of love you are willing to give and receive.

In the midst of the meantime, it may appear that you are standing on shaky ground. The truth is you are standing on Holy Ground. Oh by the way, did I mention that the meantime is grounded in truth? The truth of who you are, the truth about what you do, the truth about what you want, the truth about what you see, the truth about what you know, and the truth about what you do not know. Furthermore, in the midst of the meantime experience, there is the truth about your ability to recognize each of these, and it is this truth that ultimately determines how you make it through whatever you are going through.

In the meantime, you are engaged in a Holy Healing process which your soul signed up for because, at the deepest level of your soul, you know that love is the only way to get what you really want. In the meantime, you will have to work through your stuff.

A feeling is the energy that moves you in one direction or another. If you get stuck in a feeling, you won't move in any direction at all. What you are feeling determines the kind of work you must do to make it through the meantime. The following is a basic guideline you can use to figure out where you live.

you are doing basement work if you are feeling disappointed, betrayed, rejected, and/or like where you are is someone's fault. You've got a problem, but you don't know it.

you are doing first-floor work if you are feeling angry, frightened, confused, unhappy, and/or apprehensive, or believe your life is falling apart. You've got a problem, but you don't know what it is.

you are doing second-floor work if you are ending a relationship that you don't want to end, leaving employment that you didn't have the courage to leave, going back to school, moving to a new location just to get away from the old one, opening a business because you got kicked out of your job, and/or facing a serious health challenge because of lack of self-care. You've got a problem, you know what it is, but you don't know what to do about it.

you are stuck between the second and third floors if you are asking Why me??? Why now??? Why should I??? How come??? How can I??? When will it end??? When will it begin??? What the heck is going on??? You've got a problem, you know what it is, you know what to do about it, but you are afraid to do it.

you are doing third-floor work if you are seeking closure to dysfunctional relationships, ready to forgive people you've been in relationships with, ready to forgive yourself for staying in relationships and situations you knew you had no business being in, and/or you are ready to assume full responsibility for every aspect of your life. You don't have problems. You have challenges, and you feel perfectly equipped to handle them.

you are doing attic work if you are feeling or saying I am grateful! I am hopeful! I am ready! I am open!

Just to be on the safe side, let's take a quick inventory to make sure that this is the book you need.

You are in the meantime if:

• You are confused, angry, disappointed, frustrated about something that has happened in your life.
• You have just been fired, left, divorced, had surgery, or been released from prison.
• You feel anxious, apprehensive, beat up, beat down, sorry for yourself, unhappy with yourself, numb, or generally wiped out.

If, however, you are in rage, depression, seeking vengeance or revenge; if you are seeing red, black, or green at the thought of a particular person or situation, you are not in the meantime. You are in a valley!

A valley experience is very different from a meantime situation. When you are in a valley, you are having an experience that fosters character development. When you find yourself in a valley, it is because you have missed the boat! You have displayed either an inability or an unwillingness to examine and accept the truth about yourself. You are learning a lesson that you missed because you insisted on "having it your way" or "doing your thing," even when you knew that your way would not work. If you are in a valley you are probably crying in anger, breaking dishes, talking really badly about someone, and being a victim -- again! You probably sound something like this, "I gave my all and got messed over -- again!" Or, "I bent over backwards trying to do it right, only to be overlooked, left, mistreated -- again!"

If you find yourself in a miserable experience you swore you would never be in again, chances are you didn't see it coming. Not because you couldn't see it, but because you didn't want to see it. Now that what you saw and refused to accept has bitten you on the butt, you are really, really, really pissed off! It's called pissosity! That is the state in which most valley dwellers find themselves before they become aware that there is work to be done. They are either comatose or in a highly agitated state of pissosity.

If this clearly or closely describes your current state of being, I humbly suggest that you go back and read The Value in the Valley: A Black Woman's Guide Through Life's Dilemmas. Do not get hung up on the fact that you may not be black or that you may not be a woman. Read it anyway! I can almost guarantee that there is something you need to know about yourself in the pages of that book.

If you are actually in a valley, you may find there is a little help for you in this workbook; however, you must be willing to do the work required. This means no more blaming. Blaming is pointing out there, rather than in here, into your own mind, when you find yourself in a painful or uncomfortable experience. Blame means shifting the responsibility for where you are onto someone or something else, rather than accepting responsibility for your role in the experience.

A meantime experience is a very different experience. When you are in the meantime, you are hurt, but you are not blaming anyone else unless you are in the basement. You will know you are in the basement if you are ready to feel better by any means necessary. You are angry, but you are willing to forgive, even if forgiving means acknowledging that you made a mistake, a poor choice, or a big boo-boo. You are confused, but you have not pulled the covers up over your head, refusing to come out until someone or something has its head ripped off.

If you are able to show even the slightest degree of willingness to work on yourself, you may find solace in these pages. Otherwise, until you become willing to work through some of the anger, pissosity, and blaming, you are going to find that it is very hard to do the healing work required. But, I will leave it up to you to decide where you are and where you want to be.

In the meantime, you are asking: What? What can I do? What did I do? What should I do? What am I learning? You are asking: How? How can I stop this cycle? How did I get here? How come...? You are asking: Why? Why am I here? Why is this happening? Why this? Why now? This is a very different scenario from the valley scenario. When you are in the valley, the only thing you are asking is "Why me?!" You are also placing more emphasis on the me, as opposed to the why. This is precisely why the meantime is a very different experience. You have come to the meantime to evolve, not to develop; to get clear, not to find y...

Customer Reviews

Outstanding at any time!
Iyanla Vanzant does not disappoint in this book. She has a very descriptive and engaging way of pulling you along to a point and allowing you the grace to awkwardly express new patterns of behavior. This book is incredible if you are facing a time in your life when you are changing and shifting your patterns and you have moved away from one thing, but have not quite got a grasp on that place you're heading toward. It humanizes the evolution that we all want to go through and gives you honest keys for getting there if you want.

Didn't care for it
This was not my first book by her but this was the first one I didn't care for. I was very disapointed when I open the book. I was under the impression I would be able to work on my inner self. However, this book might work for others but not me. It ask me question that I was not able to answer. ex. Things about my mom. (mom died at early age) alot of the question I couldn't answer due to I don't know most of my family or know my family history. So I became very frustrated with the book an put it down and never looked at it again. I do feel if you have a strong connection or have been around your family enough you will be abe to work through the book. Good luck to other who might try

Iylanla Digs Deep
I have been a Starting Over Fan since I stumbled across it during the second season. Iyanla Vanzant is one of the "life coaches" who helps women deal with their pain and problems. In her book, Living Through the Meantime, Iyanla gives readers the necessary tools to dig deep and uncover all the muck and wounds so that they can be their authentic selves and not just a shell of a woman.